Holocaust Survivor to speak in Springfield

Wittenberg will observe International Holocaust Rememberance Day by inviting John Koenigsberg to give a presentation Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in Bayley Auditorium of the Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center.

Koenigsberg survived the Holocaust in the Netherlands and was just five-years-old when his grandfather, David Starkman, was taken from his home by the Gestapo.

Starkman eventually died at the Sobibor concentration camp in Poland and Koenigsberg ended up living with a non-Jewish family because his parents decided the best way to survive the Holocaust would be if the family split up.

His father ended up joining the Dutch resistance, and his mother sought refuge in another part of the country.

Koenigsberg made it through the horrors of the war and the Holocaust and was eventually reunited with his family in 1945 when he was eight-years-old and they were living in Cincinnati.

After losing contact with the family who protected him during the war, Koenigsberg was finally able to reconnect with one of them recently.

Koenigsberg is one of nearly 1,800 remaining Holocaust survivors that live in Ohio. He says he feels blessed every single day.